Funtoo:Metro/Initial Setup

This page will walk you through setting up metro for the first time.

Cloning and configuring Metro

Metro is run from its own git tree, and does not have its own ebuild. You can get the latest version of Metro from the git repository using git.

root # cd /root
root # git clone https://code.funtoo.org/bitbucket/scm/core/metro.git

Installing dependencies

Because the git repo is cloned directly, you will need to install some Python modules used by the scripts. Please make sure you have the following packages installed in your system:

root # emerge -av dev-python/lxml dev-python/requests

   Note

metro is running as root and while not strictly necessary but best practice would be using dedicated environment such as LXD container or similar where you will run your builds.

With this setup, before installing dependencies of metro, run ego sync in your container.

Configuring Metro

The default options for metro are usually fine for most cases. If you are happy with the defaults, just copy the default configuration file to /root/.metro:

root # cp /root/metro/metro.conf /root/.metro

Two things to note -- the /root/.metro file specifies where the metro git repository is installed -- and this must match where you put it on your system. If you are not using the location of /root/metro, then you will need to fix [section path] / install to reflect this.

Also, metro will set up what is called a "mirror" -- this is an organized repository of stages that metro manages, and it uses the directory structure you will find at https://build.funtoo.org. By default, the path /home/mirror/funtoo is used as the base of this repository. This path is also defined in .metro and should be changed if you are using the non-default location.

If you wish to further tweak the settings then you should edit .metro accordingly (see Configuring_Metro) to learn how to do that.

Now your system is ready to run Metro's automatic setup tool, which will take care of the rest of the preparation.

Setting up your build

The Python modules you installed earlier allows setup to run, which generally will take care of everything else. When you run setup, the following tasks will be performed:

1. Independent ego cloned to /root/ego (which is used by metro to create snapshots);
2. If Package:fchroot is not installed, it will be emerged;
3. A "seed" stage3 will be downloaded so that you can use it to build a new stage3;
4. The "mirror" repository will be set up to build an up-to-date version of this stage3.

These steps are done automatically by the setup script, which only needs to be run once.

When this is done, you will be able to use metro to perform a build on your system. Our simplified setup script will get you up and running with a basic metro configuration which we recommend for new users. Specifically, it will allow you to take one of our official Funtoo stage3's of a particular arch and subarch, and build an updated version of the same arch and subarch. If you want to set up another arch and subarch to build locally, it is safe to run setup a second time.

Let's launch setup:

root # /root/metro/scripts/setup

Selecting a release

You can build a stage tarball for any of the available Funtoo releases. Currently, these are the only releases available:

www.funtoo.org / funtoo

   1. 1.4-release-std
   2. next




















.

Selecting an Architecture

Choose a general architecture from the menu. You'll have a chance to choose a more specific sub-architecture in the next step.

www.funtoo.org / funtoo / next


   1. arm-64bit
   2. riscv-64bit
   3. x86-64bit




















.

Selecting a Sub-Architecture

Choose the specific sub-architecture you wish to build your stage tarball for.

www.funtoo.org / funtoo / next / x86-64bit

   1. amd64-bulldozer
   2. amd64-excavator
   3. amd64-k10
   4. amd64-piledriver
   5. amd64-steamroller
   6. amd64-zen
   7. amd64-zen2
   8. amd64-zen3
   9. core2_64
  10. generic_64
  11. intel64-broadwell
  12. intel64-haswell
  13. intel64-ivybridge
  14. intel64-nehalem
  15. intel64-sandybridge
  16. intel64-silvermont
  17. intel64-skylake
  18. intel64-westmere


.

Note that thanks to Package:fchroot, you will be able to update an arm-64bit stage on an x86-64bit system if you want.

   Important

More advanced uses of Metro allow for a new subarch to be "bootstrapped" from an existing subarch, but that is not provided as an option as it's a more sophisticated use of the tool and not ideal for your initial local build. Let's keep things simple to get started :)

Wait for the Setup to Complete

The setup script will go through several steps to set up your build. If you are running it for the first time, this can include installing supporting software and downloading a tarball, so it may take some time to complete.

Here is a sample output:

Created file /home/mirror/funtoo/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/.control/strategy/build with contents 'local'
Created file /home/mirror/funtoo/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/.control/strategy/seed with contents 'stage3'
Created file /home/mirror/funtoo/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/.control/version/stage3 with contents '2022-09-13'
--2022-10-09 08:06:24--  https://build.funtoo.org/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/2022-09-13/stage3-generic_64-next-2022-09-13.tar.xz
Resolving build.funtoo.org... 89.187.187.14, 89.187.187.12, 89.187.187.19, ...
Connecting to build.funtoo.org[89.187.187.14]:443... connected.
 
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 701542432 (669M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘/home/mirror/funtoo/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/2022-09-13/stage3-generic_64-next-2022-09-13.tar.xz’
 
funtoo/next/x86-64bit/g  100%[==================================================>] 669.04M  95.5MB/s    in 7.3s
 
2022-10-09 08:06:32 (92.0 MB/s) - ‘/home/mirror/funtoo/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/2022-09-13/stage3-generic_64-next-2022-09-13.tar.xz’ saved [701542432/701542432]
 
Cloning into '/root/ego'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 3385, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (3385/3385), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1382/1382), done.
remote: Total 3385 (delta 2093), reused 2902 (delta 1727), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (3385/3385), 760.96 KiB [ 27.18 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (2093/2093), done.
 
Metro build for release next, x86-64bit, generic_64 has been initialized.
To build a new release, use ezbuild (or set up buildbot):
 
scripts/ezbuild.sh next x86-64bit generic_64 freshen+gnome

Building a new release

In the example above, a "next x86-64bit generic_64" build has been set up to build a new Gnome stage3 tarball after updating the existing stage3 tarball downloaded from https://build.funtoo.org. If you're satisfied with those settings, you can just go ahead and run the command as suggested:

root # /root/metro/scripts/ezbuild.sh next x86-64bit generic_64 freshen+gnome

Otherwise, continue reading to learn how to create a stage3 tarball with different specs.

The first 3 arguments in the example above: 'next', 'x86-64bit' and 'generic_64' correspond to the options you chose when you ran the setup script. If you'd like to run ezbuild.sh for a different release, architecture or sub-architecture, you need to run the setup script again with the appropriate options. You only need to do this once per subarch -- just to make sure you have a local copy of the stage3 for that subarch. After that, ezbuild.sh can keep the stage3 updated using the most recent successfully-built stage3.

The 4th argument corresponds to a combination of the stages to build + the target specs for your stage tarball.

Checking the logs

The ezbuild.sh script is very quiet. If you were expecting to get a lot of output like a usual emerge session, it may look like your computer froze. You can check what ezbuild.sh is doing by watching the logs, which can be found in a path with the following structure: /home/mirror/funtoo/<release>/<arch>/<subarch>/<date>/log/<target>.txt.

root # tail -f /home/mirror/funtoo/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/2022-10-08/log/stage3-freshen.txt

Under the same directory, you will find a log file for every spec file involved in the build you chose. In the case of the example above, we had chosen “freshen+gnome”, so we can expect to find stage3-freshen.txt and gnome.txt.

If you'd like to know all the targets that were selected for your build, check the file .targets at (in our example):

root # cat /home/mirror/funtoo/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/2022-10-08/.targets

Choosing a Target

Stages to Build

There are 2 options for this argument: “freshen” and “full”.

“Freshen” will basically run a @world update on an existing stage3 tarball to generate a fresh, updated version of the same tarball.

“Full” will build a stage3 from scratch, starting by building a stage1, then a stage2 and finally, from that, an entirely new stage3 tarball, completely built from source.

Build Targets

You can create different flavors of a stage3, with the software and settings necessary for different purposes. For example, a GNOME Desktop stage3 tarball, an LXD container image, etc. The available targets can be found at /root/metro/targets/gentoo. You can also create your own custom targets. See Metro Data Model to learn how to do that.

Using Gnu Screen

Depending on the arguments you passed to ezbuild.sh, the build process may take several hours to complete.

If you are running ezbuild.sh from another machine through an ssh session, you might want to use a terminal multiplexer like app-misc/tmux or app-misc/screen, which will allow you to close the terminal and even log out from the remote machine machine. Here is how you can do it using Gnu Screen:

Emerging app-misc/screen:

root # emerge -av app-misc/screen

Running app-misc/screen:

root # screen -T ${TERM} -S Metro

This will open a screen session where you can run ezbuild.sh:

root # /home/root/metro/scripts/ezbuild.sh next x86-64bit generic_64 freshen+gnome

Now, if you'd like to leave the terminal, just press Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+D to detach the screen session. Once you've detached, you are free to leave you ssh session and/or close your terminal. The script will keep running inside the detached session.

When you want to go back, log back in if you are working from a remote host and just restore your session:

root # screen -T ${TERM} -r Metro

Where is my Stage Tarball?

When the build completes, by default the stage tarball can be found in a path with the following structure: /home/mirror/funtoo/<release>/<arch>/<subarch>/<date>/. In our example, it will be found at:

root # ls /home/mirror/funtoo/next/x86-64bit/generic_64/2022-10-08/

If you'd like your tarballs to go elsewhere, you can change your configuration in /root/.metro (see Configuring Metro).

Where to Go From Here

Additional Architectures

The automatic setup script doesn't offer all the possible architectures you could be building a stage tarball for. Read the instructions on Manual Setup to learn how to set up a build for any of the supported platforms. In theory, you can actually set up Metro to build a stage tarball for any platform supported by the GCC (and QEMU, if it's the target platform is different from the host platform).

Custom Targets

Study Metro Data Model to learn how to create new custom targets, which you can then use for your own customized builds.

Automation (Buildbots)

You can set up multiple builds and have Metro automatically build each one of them or just refresh the ones that are outdated. Read the instructions at Automation to learn how to do that.